


Bad Hair Day

by abracadaze



Category: Fraggle Rock
Genre: (points at boober fraggle) this guy is NOT neurotypical, Autistic Character, Gen, M/M, Sensory Processing Disorder, a show i began watching... oh 3 days ago, autistic boober fraggle, but theyre not smoochin or anything, hark. neurodivergency be upon ye, honestly i think fraggle love and silly creature love is different, oh guess i should say i'm not diagnosed autistic but i do have sensory processing issues, or it may be the first of many, or just like..., so this is my first ever completed fic. and it is for jim henson's fraggle rock, tagged as boober/wembley bcus like. it could be read that way and i dont mind if it is, this might be the only fraggle fic i ever write, ty to bella and the muppets server for finally getting me to watch this show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28912413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abracadaze/pseuds/abracadaze
Summary: Boober finally explains one of his many eccentricities to a friend.
Relationships: Boober Fraggle & Wembley Fraggle, Boober Fraggle/Wembley Fraggle
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Bad Hair Day

Boober was settling down into a comfortable afternoon of drudgery in his cave when he heard the telltale frenetic humming of an approaching Wembley. He grabbed his trusty washboard and set it in the basin. As much as he loved the monotony of his job, he had to admit—though only to himself—that sometimes he did enjoy when his friends dropped by as he worked. Usually, they just sat and talked while he focused on the noble task of laundry. Mokey would read her latest poems, Gobo would tell him about his uncle Travelling Matt’s adventures, Red would recount the morning’s best swimming feats… it was soothing, in a strange way, how their chatter became background noise. He dumped the first basket of laundry into the basin as Wembley popped his head through the curtain.

“Hiya, Boober!” Wembley called out. “How goes the washing?”

“Well, I’m just getting—” Boober began, but as he looked up he abruptly cut himself off. “Oh my tail, what has happened to your hair?”

“Huh?”  
  


“Your _hair_ , Wembley! It’s–it’s–do you have some sort of awful hair-altering sickness? I think I’ve read about those… Oh, I’ve heard they’re fatal! Wembley my friend, you have not long left on this mortal coil!”

“Boober, what are you talking about?” 

Boober lifted a shaky, soapy finger and pointed to Wembley’s head. Where his Lima bean-green hair was usually teased up into a sensible puff, it was now vivisected and tied into two terrifying pigtails that towered over his eyes. Wembley reached a hand up and then laughed when he felt his hair, letting out a quiet “Oh, yeah!” 

“This is no laughing matter, Wembley! If this is what I believe it to be, you are in serious danger!”

“No, no, Boober, you’ve got it all wrong,” said Wembley. “Here, I’ll explain. Mokey said that last night she had a dream that she began to wear her hair like Red does, and so she did it like that this morning! And when she came by and Red saw and asked why and Mokey explained, Red thought it was hilarious, and she said everyone else should do their hair like hers for today, and Mokey thought it was a great idea!”

Boober gulped. “So you didn’t tie your hair up like that while under the influence of some germ-induced delirium?” 

“Of course not! So far it’s just me and Mokey, and Red, of course, but Red’s trying her best to convince Gobo to do it too.”

“Well, good luck with that,” Boober muttered to himself. Just as he was turning back to his laundry, Wembley let out something sort of like a yelp.

“What, what is it?” Boober cried. “Is there a rock spider on me?”

“Boober, how about you do your hair up, too!” 

“What?! No way!” 

Wembley bounced up and down on his heels. “Oh, c’mon Boober, it’ll only be for today—and I bet you’ll look great!”

Boober shook his head and scrubbed a pair of dirty socks against the washboard. Wembley had his fair share of good ideas, but this was not one of them. Unfortunately, it seemed like Wembley wasn’t going to give it up.

“Boober, please? It’ll be funny!”

“I hate being funny!”

“Well, it won’t be you that’s being funny, it’ll be your hair, see—” 

“I don’t want my hair to be funny, either! I like it just the way it is.”

Wembley sighed. “Y’know Boober, sometimes I just don’t understand you.”

Boober sighed back. “No one does,” he said, perhaps with a little too much melodrama, and wrung out the socks.

“Why do you wear your hair the way you do, anyway?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Boober replied, beginning to scrub a stain out of an orange shawl.

“You know, all in your face like that. You’ve done it as long as I’ve known you!” Wembley chirped. He’d stopped his fidgeting and plopped down on the floor across from Boober, on the other side of the washbasin.

Boober shrugged. “I just do.”

“I mean, gosh, if I wore my hair like that, I bet I wouldn’t be able to see a thing! I’d bump into more rocks and pipes and stuff than I already do.”

Boober wrung out the shawl and set it aside. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

“Yes, but why?” Wembley asked again. Boober heaved another sigh. He liked Wembley, but when he wasn’t frantically agreeing with everyone in earshot, he was asking questions, and questions could be quite dangerous.

“I don’t know why, Wembley, I just do. I wear my hair like this because it’s what I’ve always done, and I like it that way, and it makes me feel safe, and I like being safe, so there.”

Wembley let out a little hum. “So it’s like good luck, huh? I get it.”

Boober could have easily nodded and gone back to his laundry and that would have been the end of it. But there was a nagging feeling in his head that he should tell Wembley the real reason he wore his hair the way he did, as much as he understood it himself—and he was not one to ignore nagging feelings. So he pulled his hands from the tub, shaking them just as much to dispel his nervous energy as to dry them off, and said, “Well, not really.”

Wembley blinked, looking confused. “Oh,” he said, “I… I don’t think I get it, then.”

Boober wrung his hands together. He wasn’t quite sure how to even explain it to Wembley, but he was at least going to try. “There are… sometimes things I don’t like to look at. But it’s not just things like Gorgs—no one likes looking at them. It’s stuff that doesn’t make sense not to like looking at.”

“Like what?” Wembley asked. If it was anyone else, Boober probably wouldn’t have bothered to explain further. But this was Wembley, his best friend in all of Fraggle Rock. Even if Wembley didn’t understand, he wouldn’t laugh at him… he hoped.

“Like... light. Sometimes, the lights in the cave are too bright, or the reflections off the Doozer constructions, or even the Fraggle Moon swimming in the pond. I’m not scared, really, it just hurts... to look at.”

Wembley didn’t respond, but it was like a Pipe-Banger had banged on something in Boober’s chest, and suddenly everything was tumbling out.

“But that’s not the worst thing. The worst is… it’s eyes. I hate them. I hate having to look at them! They’re all big and slimy, and when you look a Fraggle in the eyes, it’s like they expect you to… to know what’s going on in their head. And I just don’t know. I never know. And if I don’t, it’s rude, but if I do… It all gets to be too much, and I just want to run and hide in my cave." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "So I wear my hair and my hat so that it blocks the light and no one can tell when I’m not looking them in the eyes.”

“Oh, I didn’t know,” Wembley said, more somber than usual. Boober felt a twinge of something in his heart—Wembley was worried about him. 

He scoffed. “Well of course you didn’t know, Wembley, I don’t tell anyone!” He glanced over at Wembley and found him frowning.

“But why not?”

“Because it’s even stranger than the rest of the things that bother me! If they thought I was afraid of light, or eyes, which I am _not_ , everyone… everyone would think I’m even more of a hopeless coward than they already do.” Somehow Boober’s tail had found its way into his hands, and he tugged at the tuft of orange hair at its end.

“Well, I don’t think you’re a coward,” Wembley said quietly. He stood up, walked around the washbasin, and sat next to Boober. “I think… I think it was pretty brave of you to tell me all that, actually.”

“You pity me, Wembley,” Boober replied. Even though Wembley’s words had made him feel a bit better, he couldn’t help it.

“I do not! Boober, I don’t, really!” Wembley gently pulled Boober’s frazzled tail from his fingers and laid his hand on his. Cautiously, Boober tilted his head so that it rested on Wembley’s shoulder, and Wembley didn’t move away. “I just think… if this is all hurting you so much, you should tell everyone else. Me and Gobo and Red and Mokey, I bet we could figure something out. If no one knows how much things are bothering you, it won’t get better. Maybe we could even go to the Trash Heap for help! Or… maybe we could find another Fraggle like you! I don’t know anyone else that doesn’t like that stuff, but we can’t say there aren’t any if we haven’t looked!”

Boober now felt like the Pipe-Banger was banging on his tear ducts instead. He’d been so worried thinking of all the ways he’d be made fun of, he hadn’t stopped to consider that maybe his friends would try to help him. But he was still scared. “I think I can handle this on my own, Wembley.”

“Oh,” Wembley replied, sounding a little deflated. Boober’s heart wrenched unpleasantly. He hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. “You don’t need our help, then?”

With his free hand, Boober traced meaningless patterns onto the floor as he thought. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have someone looking out for him. “Well… How about, for now, we don’t tell anyone else, alright? And it’s just you. And if I ever… if it ever gets to be too much for me, out there, I’ll tell you.” After a moment, Boober added, “If that’s fine with you, that is.”

“Of course, Boober! Anything to help you out,” Wembley said, nodding. “And, uh… you don’t have to do up your hair like Red’s if you don’t want to.”

Boober squeezed his friend’s hand, still leaning against him. “Thank you, Wembley.”

**Author's Note:**

> TY FOR READING!!! my tumblr is abracadaze though i haven't posted any fraggle content there. please reach out if you would like to join a very very small jim henson server :) if you drop a kudo i will kiss you on the lips and if you comment then we are to be married in the summer


End file.
